The last time I went to Fishpond Cottage was in about 1968, soon after my dad’s Uncle Jack had died. Whoever now owned it, or, for all I know, had owned it all along, wanted it completely refurbished, and had … Continue reading →

…………Fragments of hand written notes come to me from my Aunt Mary about her early years in Stonnall and Walsall Wood, and married life in Lynn Lane, transcribed by my cousin Rosalind. Along with stories I remember her telling me, … Continue reading →

I wonder whether Orgreave House feels uncertain…. and a little wistful…. about its identity? After all, if it wasn’t for its gracious neighbour, the Queen Anne mansion of Orgreave Hall, it would be the largest and most imposing dwelling … Continue reading →

I paused – for the purpose of taking this photograph – from heaving my wooden spoon around the luscious, peaty amalgam of this season’s rather late Christmas Cake. This huge and precious old Mason and Cash mixing bowl had only just come … Continue reading →

I inhabit – for the time being – a small rural hamlet strung just off the A513, and equidistant between two enduringly olde worlde villages, a few miles north of Lichfield in Staffordshire. It’s the sort of quiet place that Torment and … Continue reading →

This funny baby did not appear as pink and cherubic as the illustrations on the cover of the instruction manual that it came with. But a few hours had now passed since my birth. The angry bruising around my face had begun to … Continue reading →

My parents finished building the house at 155 Bosty Lane, Aldridge by the summer of 1957. They had, by this time, been married for almost nine years. These had been nine years of a childless, double-income life in rented rooms comprising half of … Continue reading →